This may not be an issue for some users, but if you want full control of what is happening in this regard, you may prefer a solution that is more open.

Batch files are ideal for that, as they open in any plain text editor. You may then go through them line by line to verify what they do before executing them.

Another benefit of this approach is that you may adjust the batch file as you see fit. This is especially useful if multiple changes are made by it to the system.

Pleasant Windows 10

Note: It is recommended that you create a system restore point, or a backup before you run any of the tweaks. While you can verify what they do by opening them in a plain text editor, it is always better to be on the safe side and create a backup so that you can restore the system to a previous state should things go wrong.

Note 2: We recommend that you check the batch files before you run them, as you may adjust them as you see fit. You may not want some settings or features changed for instance.

The following batch files are included in the archive

Advanced Explorer Settings -- This changes more than a dozen File Explorer related settings on Windows 10 that turn of animations, enable menus, or turn off things like Toasts.

Get apps access for Administrator Account -- Enable access to applications for the administrator account.

Verdict

The batch files offer two advantages over software programs. First, they are verifiable which means that you can check them out to make sure they do what they are supposed to do and nothing else.

This means as well that you can modify them to your liking, and even restore settings to their original values, for instance by creating a copy of a batch file and modifying values and commands accordingly.

Second, you can run them with a single-click, and they do all the work in the background without launching a program interface first. (Thanks Joern!)

Download

You can download the collection of batch files with a click on the following link:
Pleasant Windows 10

The password is joern.

Summary

Article Name

Improve Windows 10 with one-click batch files

Description

Pleasant Windows 10 is a collection of one-click batch files by Ghacks reader Joern that improve the operating system in various ways.

Author

Martin Brinkmann

Publisher

Ghacks Technology News

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About Martin Brinkmann

Martin Brinkmann is a journalist from Germany who founded Ghacks Technology News Back in 2005. He is passionate about all things tech and knows the Internet and computers like the back of his hand.
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I m on Windows 8.1 Pro 64bit on my laptop. And have updated versions of 7+ Taskbar Tweaker and QTabBar and Kaspersky Anti Virus 2016 installed with all the animations disabled. The problem, the solution to which i have not been able to find is that *randomly* when i click on any minimized Windows Explorer window, the whole Explorer freezes and restarts after sometime. Other work remains unaffected. I have disabled 7+ Taskbar Tweaker and QTabBar to no avail. I have no external hard drive connected when this happens. I m not able to isolate the problem. Any suggestions on what m i missing?

sure.
what’s the point of having batch files generating .reg and .vbs files? why not just put the .reg/.vbs files instead the batches into the zip-file? the readablility of the files would be better too.

as a matter of fact most, if not all, of these settings can be accomplished with policies (i.e. a bunch of reg-files would suffice) and tweaking settings that way is common since XP.

and if you absolutely want something “batch-y” then use powershell, fgs.

@zund
sorry, that’s not true.
The things these bat files can accompilsh are not only done importing a reg file.
First you cannot import reg files in the registry which will alter settings that belongs to the system. Easy things like desctopicon distance aren’t protected but heavy things like telemetry or automaticupdates belongs to system and you are not able to edit these keys even if you are admin.
In other words, you need to right click on each registry key and set your own user account as ‘owner’ and then give yourself ‘full’ rights. Only then you can permanently change protected registry keys.
Also more important: Turning off forced reboot after Windows update can’t be done in registry NOR in policies, same for disabling lockscreen or cortana fully.

Second each batch file need admin rights therefore you need to right click each file and launch it as admin.
This is one additional and unneccessary click when the batch itself can get admin rights on its own.

Third one file and one (double) click is pretty easy and clean instead of having several additional vbs and reg files which will have summed up the SAME code than one batch file.

Fourth not everybody is using the Windows 10 PRO edition and therefore not everybody has access to policies. Also it’s a matter of time, doing the things in policies and doing it with a double click is like night and day.

Fifth powershell is slow on executing and code language is way more complicated than on batch. Your point of ‘readability’ destroys itself.

Nice job! Can benefit from a readme.txt file with an explanation of each .bat file, and to automatically generate .reg exports of registry keys before each change so there’s an easy way to undo each (in fact, why not create an undo .bat file that polls a (relative path) subfolder where exported .reg files are saved and then prompt if each should be restored?).

1.
Thank you for the effort and work which you have put into writing the ,bat files.
2.
Thank you for the response to zund with the detailed explanations / reasons for using .bat files. i.e. how your files make life easier for average Win 10 ( non Pro ) users.
3.
Thanks to Martin for hosting Pleasant Windows 10.

Joern,
back in early November, I ran the various script files in your distribution and all seemed well.
However, today I tried to update Windows 10 and ran into several difficulties, the main one being that KB3213986 would not install. All the others did, just that one wouldn’t. I tried several recovery options and managed to get the system up again.
I don’t know if the scripts were the culprits, but it would be great if you could provide a reversal script for each one in your collection.
I sure hope other people don’t experience the same issues, as it cost me almost a full day to get the system running again.

There is only one thing difficult to undo and it’s ‘Disable Cortana Completely’. Therefore you will find another batch called ‘Reenable Cortana’.
Things like ‘Advanced Explorer Settings’ are only the settings you can do yourself in explorer->’view’ tab->settings->change folder settings->’view’ tab’
Here you will have to check or uncheck the settings you don’t like from ‘Advanced Explorer Settings’.

Martin. Have you heard of Win 10 Toggle Tweaker? It’s a single (open source) batch file that is very similar to the set of batch files in this post, but it contains significantly more options. As the name implies all features can toggled on and off so anything that gets disabled can easily be reenabled.

About gHacks

Ghacks is a technology news blog that was founded in 2005 by Martin Brinkmann. It has since then become one of the most popular tech news sites on the Internet with five authors and regular contributions from freelance writers.